Related Articles

Miss Doron did confirm, however, that this was the first such contact in three decades.

The IAEC would provide no further details of the conversation between one if its senior officials, Meirav Zafary-Odiz, and Ali Ashghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Speaking privately, officials said that the Iranian representative accused Israel of hiding details about its nuclear weapons programme, that the Israeli representative had then accused Iran of doing the same, and that the confrontation had ended inconclusively.

Israel has never admitted to being a nuclear power, although it is widely accepted that the country has a significant arsenal of atomic weapons.

An Egyptian delegate who attended the conference said that both representatives had made voluble contributions during a debate on the forum floor.

"They were making interventions, addressed to the floor," said Gamal Abdel Gawad Soltan, a political analyst in Cairo. "They were very critical of each other. It was heated, but polite."

Despite the encounter, observers said that a shift in the diplomatic positions of either state was unlikely.

"It could be significant but I think there is a danger of people reading too much into it," said Ephraim Asculai, formerly a senior official at the IAEC.

Israel has traditionally held a particularly hawkish line on Iran, raising fears that the Jewish state could mount unilateral military action against Tehran's nuclear facilities.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's outspoken president, has voiced support for a call to eliminate Israel.

Despite the open antipathy between the two states, Israeli and Iranian representatives do frequently sit in the same room during conferences even if they have not responded to each other directly in the past.